If Another Entered
by My Sweet Chaos
Summary: A peek into Snape's head as he thinks on his life, what he's lost, and what he's found. Lots of thinking going on here. One-Shot, Snilly I guess.


A/N: Hi. Yeah, I know, my other stories are all Hetalia (and there's another on the way). The reason for this seemingly-random collection of thoughts and ideas from a totally different fandom is time. This little one-shot predates basically everything I've ever written. I found it and thought, _what's this_? and now it's here for you to read. Warning- it's sort of depressing. A little.

Owning Harry Potter would be really nice- but I don't.

The fire behind the thick iron grate sputtered away into ashes, its last breath exhausted into a puff of dark soot and a final surge of warmth. The warmth washed over the man sitting in a hard wooden chair next to it, decisive flickers of light showing his sallow face for a moment before fading into darkness. If another entered the small, close room to see his face in that little glimpse, they would probably have assumed he was asleep.

He very definitely wasn't asleep. Perhaps it was the fact that he had his eyes closed that would cause such an incorrect impression in an onlooker- but it was _because_ the sallow man had his eyes closed that he was so awake.

Behind his dark purple eyelids, the man was watching a silent film, black-and-white, ancient history spinning out in long swatches like delicate fabric. Each of the scenes had only one actor, and it was on this actor- actress, really- that the only dash of color was visible. Her clothes, skin and hair were sepia, fading and blurry like early memories often are. If another entered, there would only be one feature that they would remember when they left.

It was her eyes that were so visible, so clear, that they could have been part of a photograph. They glowed through the grey murkiness of childish reminiscing like searchlights.

Below the eyes, a widely smiling mouth. Never in the film was there a moment where the girl was sad, or serious, or angry. Her friendly face was open, her expression clear. It would have been obvious that the girl was not hiding her feelings even to the invisible outsider.

The sallow man opened his eyes and for a moment blinked about himself uncertainly, as if he was still in the past which was held so dear to him. But he realized and remembered soon enough, his face- momentarily seeming young and content- sinking into familiar lines. The hard chair scraped on the stone floor as he rose to his feet; gazing momentarily at the dead remains of the fire, face clouded (a hidden antonym to that of the girl in his memories) and impossible to read.

The other furniture in the close little room was sparse, with few items about to indicate that anyone truly lived there. There were no pictures adorning the desk or dresser, no articles that a normal person would put out for any number of reasons. On the desk there was a lamp; on the dresser there was a dusty glass bottle with dull contents. One might imagine that the man who resided there kept his things elsewhere, or perhaps didn't have any things at all.

Neither was true in the case of the sallow man, revealed to be rather menacingly tall when he rose to his feet. The things that he treasured, and that he feared, were in plain sight for all to see, if they knew what sort of man he was. If another entered, they would see nothing, and everything.

Nothing was what the sallow man treasured, anticipated, desired with every step and every breath of every day. Nothing was where all that he wanted was. Nothing was where he couldn't feel the pain that wracked, not his nerves, but his every wish and dream. _Nothing_ was what he put out on his desk as his most precious treasure, and if another entered, nothing was what they would see.

_Everything_ was what shot through his heart every time he allowed himself to remember those days when the green-eyed girl wasn't smiling. Everything he missed, everything he lacked, everything he could have changed, every way he could have kept her smiling to this day and beyond. Every thought of the days when the boundaries between right and wrong were not so simple. Every _second_ he struggled through the world without his dearest wish, his love, was a second that he regretted and cursed.

The room was dark, but with a muttered word and a flick of something in his hand the pale face was illuminated once again, this time in a steady yellow light from the lamp that graced the desk.

If one could enter his mind at this new moment, this junction of thought, they would have seen his focus switch faster than an owl could fly. His thoughts focused now upon a burden in his life, the only person alive in which those haunting eyes resided. He was to protect said person, but how was he to focus when every glance and every glare reflected _her_… and every other moment reflected _him_.

Yes, _him_. That one who had cut the first cracks and chips into his solid wall, behind which he and _she_ had cowered. The _him_ who had driven the wedge that shattered that wall, and had taken _her_ away. The-Boy-Who-Really-Should-Have-Died was the child of the two, and a stormy mix he was- like the weather, sometimes impossible to hate, sometimes so easy to dislike. On the outside so much like _him_, yet on the inside…

Yes, the sallow man found many aspects of the child hateful, his reportedly kind and honest nature notwithstanding. Perhaps it was simply because the boy had survived what _she_ couldn't. His entire being cried out to him _how dare he_ even though he knew it was unfair.

He also knew it was necessary. Necessary for his own survival, to continue to live on and serve as a key asset to this shifting, changing mess of villainy and heroics. If the boy didn't exist for him to hate, something to focus his energy upon, he would have faded away like ancient paper when touched by a living hand.

If another entered as he thought these thoughts, they would have seen a faint, wry smile upon his lips. And if they looked very closely at the pale, thin man, they may have just barely seen a small tear upon his sunken cheek.

A/N: Remember this is old, so I may have made grammatical errors because I think I might have been in elementary school when I wrote its first draft. Let me know if you see any of those.

Reviews are appreciated, flames are not.

Oh, and can anyone tell me how to do the line breaks? I'm afraid I have forgotten how, and they're pretty helpful- so yeah.


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